The Hindu Business Line : What is your brand's property?

How do people describe you when you are not in the room? Are you seen as aggressive, dull, sophisticated or knowledgeable? And what do people have to say about brands? How do they remember them? What do they recall `top of mind' about brands without being prompted? Is it the colour? Is it the TV commercial with that cute kid? Is it the unique packaging? Is it the corporate social responsibility initiative the company has embarked on? Is it the picture of the CEO that you see every second day in the newspapers? Is it the latest scandal that rocked the company? While public memory can be short, journalistic memory sadly seems to be long, aided and abetted as it is by the Net where people's predictions and gaffes seem to be stored forever!

What do people remember?

Brands are constantly communicating. To various publics - whether it is investors, customers or employees (in the case of technology companies) who are furiously increasing their head count. And not withstanding the systematic communication from companies and brands, it is important to remember that people have different (and often better) things to do other than carefully absorb and retain the messages that we send out to them. And compounding the confusion is the overall clutter, competitors' claims and the general apathy of the receiver of the message.

As a consequence, what the receiver receives is significantly different from what is transmitted. And this is the challenge that we who are in the business of brands and communication constantly face and frequently succumb to. We try to communicate everything to everybody and end up communicating nothing to anybody of consequence. Every company and brand is `sophisticated, state-of-the-art, versatile, timesaving, economical' and what have you. The consumer, therefore, does what is easily possible for him. He switches off on the message and often on the brand as well.

One thing at a time

As children we were taught the value of doing one thing at a time and doing it well. And standing sarcastically by the sidelines were 18-year-olds who were saying, "That's the problem with your generation. No wonder you didn't achieve." We felt we were not doing enough and got into multitasking and parallel processing. And yet successful brands have been and always will be focused very often on one thing.

They have tried to build associations and properties carefully over the years. Nike had its swoosh. IBM had its famed Venetian blinds. Coke appropriated red while Pepsi signed on "the men in blue." Titan had its recognisable signature tune. Britannia had a tin tin tri din. Global brands such as Volvo owned words in consumers' minds. Volvo stood for safety though it may mean luxury buses in our country. Volkswagen stood for reliability. Duracell's pink bunny has wide recall. Onida, which had a great property in the devil, abandoned it, only to embrace it again. And Kelvinator, notwithstanding the change in agency, continues to be "the coolest one." Frank Simoes' line, "Only Vimal," continues to outlive him and Rasna still says "I love you."

What started as a seemingly simple phrase is now, several years later, a strong property that customers recall amidst the myriad chores and challenges they seem to face everyday because someone has made it easy for them to remember. Are you making it easy for your customer to remember the essence of your brand? What property can be highlighted and consequently recalled? Remember the magic word: Simplify.

Indians, notwithstanding whatever you may read in the media, are essentially a set of simple people. We are not all that educated or sophisticated. Symbols and colours work with us. As do simple slogans. I am not sure if concepts like the recent Red Label tea commercial asking children to drink tea, which goes against time-tested beliefs and habits, will work. So have you made it simple for your customer to remember your brand? And you don't have to insult her intelligence by talking down to her.

Are you living your brand?

Very often, we rely too much on communication to the exclusion of everything else. A brand is more than a mere tag line. Let me explain. There is this great "MNC" brand that is now in India. I say `great' without reservation as it is often cited by marketing gurus as a brand that is consistent to the core. It has been credited with owning a word in the consumer's mind and received plaudits from pundits for this very feat. And yet the custodians of this brand in India were anything but consistent with us.

They called our agency to pitch for the PR business of this global brand. We were excited. And put our best foot forward. I even wore a tie for the meeting! But jokes apart, they went about this whole process scientifically. They asked for the profiles of the people who would be servicing the account. They visited the agency, saw the infrastructure, the support services and met the entire team. They had two levels of negotiations on the price with me and in the course of this, even asked me if I was going to sell out my agency during the tenure of the relationship! This, they said, was part of their global procedure! They also came up with a preposterous payment schedule - again part of the global guidelines.

We agreed, so enamoured were we with the brand. And then they chose another agency. Now that's fine. You win some, you lose some. But what is particularly galling is that till today (and this happened six months ago), this great brand has not informed us that they are going with someone else, reminding me of what Rita Karakas says forcefully, "Don't use the branding word, do the actions."

So are your actions matching your words? Not here, certainly, and the word that brand owns in my mind is vastly different from what it owns globally, thanks to a few insensitive brand managers. One of the derogatory expansions of MBA is `murderer of brand assets'! Unfortunately, I was reminded of this expression by this company's local managers. So here is a quick list of things to do if you are a brand custodian:

Do you have a brand property?

Is it lying hidden?

Does it run the risk of being diluted or thrown out like the `baby with the bath water'?

How can it be strengthened?

And if you don't have one, then the big question is `how do you create one?'

(The author is CEO of Brand-comm.)